Switching to Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon (and Ideapad Yoga 11)

I’ve used Thinkpads for years now. T21, T23, T40, T400, T410, T420, and now X230 and X1. About 6 months ago I had the opportunity to move from the T420 to either X230 or X1. At that time, I chose the X230 for portability and because X1 had a severe backlog (couple months offline)

While I had a great time with the X230, as it was very powerful for its size, I recently got an X1 Carbon and I am very happy with it.

The touch screen is fairly good, but when compared to other Lenovo screens such as the Yoga 11 one (which is a consumer laptop on the Ideapad family, that Ailé just got) it is on the glossy side of things (both with screen protectors, obviously, being touch)

I can’t believe Lenovo did not provide power in their USB 3.0 dock. I have to carry around the new adapter (as you would imagine, every outlet at home has a traditional-style Thinkpad AC adapter connected to it, which is now useless) and this is a major nuisance.

The chiclet keyboard is not that bad. The X230 had it as well, and I could type as fast as always on it. But, when compared to the X230, the touchpad of the X1 is more annoying. Anyways, I always turn it off and use the trackpoint thingy or an external trackball mouse. Actually, on a side note, the Ideapad touchpad is even more annoying with all the swipes and gestures being triggered by simple things.

Of course, both X230 and X1 had UEFI and Secure Boot. Since I had to get in the BIOS anyway to change boot order, I just disabled both options and all my old Linux USB drives boot like a bliss.

As with most of this low profile laptops, you have to carry around a USB Ethernet and Mini-DP VGA adapters. I actually think this is more useful than the USB 3.0 Dock which only has DVI outputs (I’ve never owned, nor needed, a DVI cable or adapter in my life)

As mentioned, Ailé did get a Yoga 11 recently and it seems like a solid laptop. The decision was between the Dell XPS 12 and the Yoga. Although the statistics show that the hinge on the Dell is not as flaky as one would expect, the Yoga was definitely sturdier (and $200 cheaper for the same specs)